Hilligraphy - "May the Therapeutic Force be with You"

Here's an excerpt from an essay that Chuck Hillig shared with me some time ago. I've gotten his permission to post it, and I am finally getting around to it. I thoroughly enjoyed his thoughts, and it speaks to my N and P preferences:

Consider this: All psychotherapy occurs at a number of different levels. Obviously, there's the physical component: the therapist interacts with the patient at a particular location in space and time. Equally obvious, there's also an emotional component that invariably shows up as the patient, guided by the therapist, walks into the labyrinth of their own belief system in order to meet and confront the shadowy minotaurs that await within.

Finally, (and here's the real power of therapy), there's also the distinct possibility that a genuine spiritual shift can take place for the patient. For example, after courageously changing the context of how he sees the world, he can become transformed through his own insights.

In order to create the opportunity for such a healing, however, I suspect that all effective therapy has to first begin by helping the patient identify and acknowledge the unvarnished inner truth about "what's so" for him.

For example, it's axiomatic that the only place that we can move away from is the very place that we're currently occupying. In other words, it's impossible for us to change ourselves from where we aren't. I've been wondering, then, if we can use the obviousness of this truth to discover that all good psychotherapy is rooted in the patient's willingness to begin to love themselves unconditionally.

Consider this: Before helping them to change into who they are not, what happens when a therapist first encourages his patient to fully "be" who they already are? In other words, instead of, indirectly, implying that their patients are "wrong" for being as they are, what would happen when the focus is first on making them "right?" In short, the therapist actively encourages the patient to begin to free his inner spirit to become, paradoxically, what that spirit already is.

Go to this link to read the full essay.